obscurity and at another attaining clear and dignified utterance,
suggest a study of Chapman. The unknown writer might have taken as his
motto a passage in the dedication of Ovid's _Banquet of Sense_:--
"Obscurity in affection of words and indigested conceits is pedantical
and childish; but where it shroudeth itself in the heart of his subject,
uttered with fitness of figure and expressive epithets, with that
darkness will I still labour to be shrouded." Chapman's _Gentleman
Usher_ was published in the same year as _Sir Gyles Goosecappe_; and I
venture to think that in a passage of Act III., Scene II., our author
had in his mind the exquisite scene between the wounded Strozza and his
wife Cynanche. In Strozza's discourse on the joys of marriage occur
these lines:--

"If he lament she melts herselfe in teares;
If he be glad she triumphs; if he stirre
She moon's his way: in all things his _sweete Ape_."

The charming fitness of the expression "sweet ape" would impress any
capable reader. I cannot think that by mere accident the anonymous
writer lighted on the same words:--

"Doe women bring no helpe of soule to men?
Why, friend, they either are mens soules themselves
Or the most witty imitatrixes of them,
Or prettiest _sweet apes_ of humane soules."

From a reference to Queen Elizabeth in Act I., Scene I., it is clear
that _Sir Gyles Goosecappe_ was written not later than 1603. The lines I
have quoted may have been added later; or our author may have seen the
_Gentleman Usher_ in manuscript.